France's prime minister loses confidence vote

François Bayrou was overwhelmingly ousted by lawmakers in a 364-194 vote.

- BY JOHN LEICESTER

FRENCH Prime Minister François Bayrou speaks in the National Assembly on Monday in Paris before the parliamentary confidence vote.

Legislators toppled France’s government in a confidence vote on Monday, a new crisis for Europe’s second-largest economy that obliges President Emmanuel Macron to search for a fourth prime minister in 12 months.

Prime Minister François Bayrou was ousted overwhelmingly in a 364-194 vote against him. Bayrou paid the price for what appeared to be a staggering political miscalculation, gambling that lawmakers would back his view that France must slash public spending to repair its debts. Instead, they seized on the vote that Bayrou called to gang up against the 74-year-old centrist who was appointed by Macron last December.

The demise of Bayrou’s short-lived minority government — now constitutionally obliged to submit its resignation to Macron after just under nine months in office — heralds renewed uncertainty and a risk of prolonged legislative deadlock for France as it wrestles with pressing challenges, including budget difficulties and, internationally, wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the shifting priorities of President Trump.

Replacement search

Although Macron had two weeks to prepare for the government collapse after Bayrou announced in August that he’d seek a confidence vote on his unpopular budget plans, no clear front-runner has emerged as a likely successor.

After Gabriel Attal’s departure as prime minister in September 2024, followed by former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier’s ouster by parliament in December and Bayrou now ousted, too, Macron again faces an arduous hunt for a replacement to build consensus in the parliament’s lower house that is stacked with opponents of the French leader.